Title: Kiss My Boots
Author: Jennifer Learmont
Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group
ISBN: 978-1922594709
Pages: 170
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review
In this raucous, action-filled tell-all memoir, author Jennifer Learmont recalls the highest and lowest moments of a multi-continental experience that ranged from life behind the doors of a domination den, revelations to be found in an independently run church, and the inner satisfaction of becoming a yogi.
The later contentment that Learmont would achieve began with a challenging childhood in Australia, where she learned to live with pain after a horrifying leg injury which left her deeply scarred – physically and emotionally. She had a brother with special needs causing much distress within the family, and another, Craig, who was an accomplished musician. By her late teens she had begun to live on the wild side, traveled to the US and settled in Los Angeles, where the wild side was even wilder. More than one marriage, many liaisons and a job secured, and unashamedly performed as a professional dominatrix were all on the agenda. Learmont and her equally bold, sensation-seeking friends found such sidelines as shop lifting and drug dealing to be a reasonable way to survive, with hard drugs for recreation. She herself believed her main source of employment – beating men – to be quite acceptable, since she never had to undress or undress her clients; but plenty of people, including Craig when he came to visit her some years later, found it shocking and asked her never to mention it again. Ultimately, fortunately, Learmont had begun going to the Sanctuary, a unique church recommended to her by an elderly client. Attending there began to wreak small but significant changes in her lifestyle, opening the way for this memoir. Recording these recollections from the perspective now of her new, calmer existence, she reflects, “I have lived an incredible life, and I did it in my own way.”
Readers will be amazed and enthralled by Learmont’s story, and will admire her skill as a writer, as she has organized this amazing chronology with humor, logic, and complete honesty. She makes no apologies for her risky, some would say immoral, escapades, but instead emphasizes personalities and positives. Her twisting tale will give food for thought, both to young women setting out on their own adventures in life, and to those older ones who will be drawn to uncover their own memories of triumph and occasional regret to ponder as Learmont shows the way.
